Cruises, are they worth the money?

We had a memorable cruise on the Nagasaki Maru back in 1995, we joined the ship in Cherbourg. I suspected that things might not be as good as the brochure had suggested when we had to board the ship via a rope ladder that a one eyed seamen lowered over the rusty hull. Our bags were hauled aboard by a small team of Lascars.

Our cabin (room) was small, even by phone box standards, but the hammocks were reasonably comfortable. There was a notice in several languages warning travellers not to open the solitary porthole because our deck was below the water line!

The restaurant, which more closely resembled a motorway truck stop, served a varied menu of mostly North Korean dishes. There was lots of rice, and the occasional item that we vaguely recognised. The fact that Koreans consider dog meat a delicacy was a recurring topic of conversation between us and our fellow passengers who were mostly Russian, Turkish and Libyan.

Our passage through the Bay of Biscay was eventful, in fact very eventful: almost everyone was violently seasick, although the thought that it might have been food poisoning drifted into, and then out of my mind  The ship rolled like a pig in a wave pool as passengers, food, crew members and pots and pans alike sloshed around the decks, mixed in with slimy green vomit. It was like a scene from a First World War naval battle film. The Kazakhstan Captain assured us that in almost 40 voyages the ship had not sunk once. There’s nothing like a bit of reassurance, is there?

On arrival in Tangiers a crowd of swarthy thieves swarmed aboard the ship and looted the duty free shop, the galley and the passenger accommodation.

We survived by quickly making a sign for our cabin door that read ‘WARNING SMALLPOX QUARANTINE’    It did the trick, and we were not separated from our valuables.

That evening we went ashore to eat as the ships stores were badly depleted following the Barbary Pirate raid, and there was insufficient food left for the chef, a murderous looking Somali, to feed us all.

The Shikoufri restaurant was delightful to anyone who was a bit of a romantic and had watched lots of Fry’s Turkish Delight adverts. To be fair, the Moroccan chicken and chips in a basket was both tasty and inexpensive.  Al though we were slightly unnerved by the gun toting Arabs that paced up and down past the door, glaring at us like a polar bear about to snatch a baby seal from its mother.

Next morning we breakfasted on coffee, dates and bread while fresh food stores were being loaded. We sailed for Tunisia later that morning just as a storm broke. Within minutes we were hanging onto our hammocks for dear life as the Nagasaki Maru pitched and rolled like a cork in a washing machine. Thirst forced me to make way to the main deck for some bottled water when I happened to see the Venezuelan stewards kneeling in the corridor,  praying.

However, the storm abated as quickly as it had sprung up and the passage to Tunisia was uneventful.

Part 2 to follow